Jeremiah 4:13
Behold, he advances like the clouds, his chariots like the whirlwind. His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us, for we are ruined!
Sermons
The Proclamation of WoeS. Conway Jeremiah 4:5-31
The Uses of the WindD. Young Jeremiah 4:11-13
Untempered JudgmentsT. G. Selby.Jeremiah 4:11-13














Not all the uses of the wind are set forth here, but enough is mentioned to remind us how God can turn a beneficial agent into a destructive one very rapidly and decisively. The force Of the unquenchable fire has already been spoken of (ver. 4); and it is a sufficiently dreadful thought that fire, so genial, so useful, with such a place in the house, and - so far as Israel was concerned - such a place in the service of God, should thus have become, in the thoughts to be associated with it, dreadful as sword, famine, or pestilence. The man who has had his house burned down, to the utter loss of all his goods, will henceforth be apt to make grim comments in his own heart when he hears men extolling the benefactor fire. And now God comes to another great force in the material world, and shows how it can be the symbol of the workings out of his holy wrath.

1. Observe how he calls attention to the beneficial working of the wind. Frequently the force of the wind is of such a moderated, yet effectual kind, that it is used to fan and to cleanse. These invading hosts, it was to be remembered, were not essentially destructive. They were made up of human individuals, each of whom had measureless capabilities of benefiting his fellow men. Possibly from these very northern lands there had come buyers and sellers, bringing commercial prosperity to Israel. Is it not plain that we should always consider, when one approaches us in a hostile and threatening way, that it may be possible by a certain course of conduct to have him come in a very different way? Many enemies have been friends, and after their enmity has come to a head and done much damage, it is possible for them to become friends again. This destroying wind, fierce and dreadful as it was for a time, would yet subside, and fanning and cleansing work be done again.

2. It is worth noticing that the Spirit of God which has such large power to bless has also power to destroy. The Spirit of God is, on the highest authority, compared to the wind. Indeed, that is what the name signifies - the breath or wind from God. Working through Peter in the glorious apostolic days, we see that Spirit healing the lame man; we hear him speaking mighty, convincing, renewing words to thousands hitherto indifferent; bringing men into correct and firm apprehensions of truth that had been misunderstood or not understood at all; and filling their minds with such a light of promise as gave reality and indescribable charm to the future. But that same Spirit struck down Ananias and Sapphira with an appalling and fatal blow, and made Elymas the sorcerer suddenly blind. Only a turn is needed, and the open hand which God extends, the hollow of it filled with the gifts of his grace, can be closed so as to smite in wrath. God does not need to go far afield for the instruments of his chastisement. The energy of his Holy Spirit can destroy as well as make alive; and Jesus, who is Savior, is also appointed to judge and condemn. -Y.

A dry wind of the high places in the wilderness toward the daughter of My people, not to fan, nor to cleanse.
The prophet intimates that God will one day send a judgment upon His people comparable only to the sirocco of the desert. The harvestman welcomes almost all the winds of the summer time but this. Their gentle currents lend themselves to the winnowing processes that are necessary to complete the toil of the year. But the sirocco comes with no element of help. fulness or beneficent service in its terrible wings. It is the agent of unmixed ruin, overthrow, death; the symbol of judgment without mercy. The successive invasions that were soon to close in upon the Holy Land were to be of this unmixed character. The flower of one generation was to perish in the overthrow. Whole districts were to be depopulated and re-peopled by alien races. The wind that came from the desert Came to crash and to scorch and to destroy. It was "not to fan, nor to cleanse." Some men claim that all judgment must be ultimately puttying. This inspired utterance however assures us that there is such a thing in the Divine economy as punishment that is purely punitive and not disciplinary.

I. LET US INQUIRE IF THIS PENAL ELEMENT HAS A PLACE IN THE BEST HUMAN GOVERNMENTS. If we work out to its logical conclusion the theory that all punishment must be disciplinary only, we shall be bound to adopt methods of procedure in our law courts more grotesque than the most audacious caricature has ever imagined. We must have no short sentences if all penalty is to be educating. We have no right to discharge a man, however slight his transgression, till he has given sufficient assurance that his character has been entirely transformed. Judge and jury would no longer need to concern themselves with the particular category into which his crime came. The only question for them to ask would be, how far does the root of evil go down in this man's character? and what amount of force will be necessary to pull it up? Some men, who are incapable of amendment through pain, can perhaps be stirred to better desires, or at least taken away from their criminal tendencies, by wholesome excitements. Experts would have to step into the witness box. In some cases it might be found that a garrotter would be more sensibly improved by wholesome excitements than by flogging. Carlyle inveighed from time to time against this unhealthy sentimentalism which would sap the foundation of all human and Divine law alike. In the "Life of Bishop Wilberforce" reference is made to a party at which Monckton Milnes, Thomas Carlyle, and other distinguished men were present. The conversation turned upon the question of capital punishment. .Mr. Monckton Milnes was arguing against death-penalties, on the ground that we could not know how far the offender was responsible and consciously wrong. Carlyle broke out, "None of your heaven-and-hell amalgamation companies for me! We do know what is wickedness. I know wicked men I would not live with: men whom under some conceivable circumstances I would kill or they should kill me. No, Milnes; there is no truth or greatness in that. It's just poor, miserable littleness. There was far more greatness in the way of your German forefathers, who, when they found one of those wicked men, dragged him to a peat bog, and thrust him in, and said, "There! go in there. There is the place for all such as thee:"

II. IF THIS PENAL ELEMENT IS ADMITTED INTO HUMAN GOVERNMENTS, UPON WHAT CONCEIVABLE PRINCIPLE CAN IT BE EXCLUDED FROM THE DIVINE? Many causes combine to weaken the sense we have of our own authority to punish wrong-doing. It is a strictly delegated authority. We always feel ourselves bound to greater restraint and circumspection in the exercise of delegated than original rights. We often feel ourselves incompetent judges of all that has transpired. We judge and punish in dim twilights. That tends to make us hesitating and indeterminate. And then the sense of our own authority to judge and to punish is weakened by the recollection we have of our own desert of punishment in many things. Unless the offence is very flagrant, we fear to incriminate ourselves by judging another. And yet, notwithstanding all these things, we are absolutely sure of our clear abstract right to punish even in cases where the punishment has no educating purpose to fulfil to the individual, whatever it may have to the community. How much stronger is God's right! His authority is original, and not delegated. He guarantees in every soul He judges the sufficiency of the past training and discipline. He dwells in the perfect light. His judgment can never be unnerved by the fear of error.

III. Disciplinary are distinguished from penal judgments, not so much by any quality in the judgments themselves, as by THE TEMPER OF THOSE WHO BECOME THE SUBJECTS OF SUCH JUDGMENTS. The question whether purely penal elements can enter into God's government is one that must be looked at from the standpoint of the transgressor rather than that of the Judge. Are there incorrigible elements in human nature? As a matter of fact, judgments very often fail to sober and to purify here. There are men who can never be taught wisdom by the longest succession of business reverses. There are men who, humanly speaking, can never be taught common morality, however heavy the penalties they are made to pay for its breach. There are worldly men whom no number of sicknesses and providential bereavements can discipline into religiousness. Where there are unreformable elements in human character, disciplinary judgment necessarily passes into the purely punitive stage. It is often argued that the keener judgments of the life to come will produce penitence in those who have continued stubborn under the milder judgments of the present life. There is not only no proof of that, but nothing even to suggest that it is probable. We cannot predicate anything from the cumulative power of pain. The wind does not become purifying by mere increase of the force with which it blows. After reaching a certain pitch of violence it can neither "fan nor cleanse."

IV. The judgment that has passed out of the disciplinary into the penal stage for the individual is still DISCIPLINARY IN ITS SIGNIFICANCE FOR THE RACE AT LARGE. The wind that blows to crush and to scorch and to uproot in one zone of the earth, after it has passed into new latitudes, and been tempered by the seas over which it travels, may become a wind of winnowing beneficence. The penal visitation of one generation may become the saving chastisement of the generation that follows it. We must not get into the habit of supposing that God's purposes ever terminate in the individual. That mystery of unending punishment, which seems to frustrate the Divine purpose of mercy to the individual, may fulfil a purpose of gracious admonition to the race. The law of vicariousness pervades the moral universe just as widely as the law of gravitation overspreads the natural universe. There is a priesthood of vicarious judgment as well as of mercy. As great fires are kindled in times of plague to burn up the germs of infection floating in the air, so the atmosphere of God's universe may need to be kept pure by the flames of a quenchless Gehenna.

(T. G. Selby.)

People
Dan, Jeremiah
Places
Dan, Jerusalem, Mount Ephraim, Zion
Topics
Behold, Chariots, Clouds, Destroyed, Destruction, Eagles, Goes, Horses, Hurricane, Laid, Lighter, Ours, Quicker, Ruined, Sorrow, Spoiled, Storm-wind, Swifter, Undone, War-carriages, Waste, Whirlwind, Wo, Woe
Outline
1. God calls Israel by his promise
3. He exhorts Judah to repentance by fearful judgments
19. A grievous lamentation for Judah

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Jeremiah 4:13

     4657   horse
     4805   clouds
     4858   whirlwind
     5252   chariots

Jeremiah 4:13-18

     9250   woe

Library
The Wailing of Risca
You all know the story; it scarce needs that I should tell it to you. Last Saturday week some two hundred or more miners descended in health and strength to their usual work in the bowels of the earth. They had not been working long, their wives and their children had risen, and their little ones had gone to their schools, when suddenly there was heard a noise at the mouth of the pit;--it was an explosion,--all knew what it meant. Men's hearts failed them, for well they prophesied the horror which
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 7: 1861

How those are to be Admonished who Sin from Sudden Impulse and those who Sin Deliberately.
(Admonition 33.). Differently to be admonished are those who are overcome by sudden passion and those who are bound in guilt of set purpose. For those whom sudden passion overcomes are to be admonished to regard themselves as daily set in the warfare of the present life, and to protect the heart, which cannot foresee wounds, with the shield of anxious fear; to dread the hidden darts of the ambushed foe, and, in so dark a contest, to guard with continual attention the inward camp of the soul. For,
Leo the Great—Writings of Leo the Great

Prevailing Prayer.
Text.--The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.--James v. 16. THE last lecture referred principally to the confession of sin. To-night my remarks will be chiefly confined to the subject of intercession, or prayer. There are two kinds of means requisite to promote a revival; one to influence men, the other to influence God. The truth is employed to influence men, and prayer to move God. When I speak of moving God, I do not mean that God's mind is changed by prayer, or that his
Charles Grandison Finney—Lectures on Revivals of Religion

How to Make Use of Christ for Cleansing of us from Our Daily Spots.
Having spoken of the way of making use of Christ for removing the guilt of our daily transgressions, we come to speak of the way of making use of Christ, for taking away the guilt that cleaveth to the soul, through daily transgressions; "for every sin defileth the man," Matt. xv. 20; and the best are said to have their spots, and to need washing, which presupposeth filthiness and defilement, Eph. v. 27. John xiii. 8-10. Hence we are so oft called to this duty of washing and making us clean. Isa.
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

"For they that are after the Flesh do Mind the Things of the Flesh,",
Rom. viii. 5.--"For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh,", &c. Though sin hath taken up the principal and inmost cabinet of the heart of man--though it hath fixed its imperial throne in the spirit of man, and makes use of all the powers and faculties in the soul to accomplish its accursed desires and fulfil its boundless lusts, yet it is not without good reason expressed in scripture, ordinarily under the name of "flesh," and a "body of death," and men dead in sins, are
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

"Who Walk not after the Flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the Flesh,"
Rom. viii. 4, 5.--"Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh," &c. If there were nothing else to engage our hearts to religion, I think this might do it, that there is so much reason in it. Truly it is the most rational thing in the world, except some revealed mysteries of faith, which are far above reason, but not contrary to it. There is nothing besides in it, but that which is the purest reason. Even that part of it which is most difficult to man,
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

"If So be that the Spirit of God Dwell in You. Now if any Man have not the Spirit of Christ, He is None of His. "
Rom. viii. 9.--"If so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." "But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth?" 2 Chron. vi. 18. It was the wonder of one of the wisest of men, and indeed, considering his infinite highness above the height of heavens, his immense and incomprehensible greatness, that the heaven of heavens cannot contain him, and then the baseness, emptiness, and worthlessness of man, it may be a wonder to the
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

The Acceptable Sacrifice;
OR, THE EXCELLENCY OF A BROKEN HEART: SHOWING THE NATURE, SIGNS, AND PROPER EFFECTS OF A CONTRITE SPIRIT. BEING THE LAST WORKS OF THAT EMINENT PREACHER AND FAITHFUL MINISTER OF JESUS CHRIST, MR. JOHN BUNYAN, OF BEDFORD. WITH A PREFACE PREFIXED THEREUNTO BY AN EMINENT MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL IN LONDON. London: Sold by George Larkin, at the Two Swans without Bishopgates, 1692. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. The very excellent preface to this treatise, written by George Cokayn, will inform the reader of
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Original Sin
Q-16: DID ALL MANKIND FALL IN ADAM'S FIRST TRANSGRESSION? A: The covenant being made with Adam, not only for himself, but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him, by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him in his first transgression. 'By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin,' &c. Rom 5:12. Adam being a representative person, while he stood, we stood; when he fell, we fell, We sinned in Adam; so it is in the text, In whom all have sinned.' Adam was the head
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Repentance
Then has God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.' Acts 11: 18. Repentance seems to be a bitter pill to take, but it is to purge out the bad humour of sin. By some Antinomian spirits it is cried down as a legal doctrine; but Christ himself preached it. From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent,' &c. Matt 4: 17. In his last farewell, when he was ascending to heaven, he commanded that Repentance should be preached in his name.' Luke 24: 47. Repentance is a pure gospel grace.
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

Directions to Awakened Sinners.
Acts ix. 6. Acts ix. 6. And he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do. THESE are the words of Saul, who also is called Paul, (Acts xiii. 9,) when he was stricken to the ground as he was going to Damascus; and any one who had looked upon him in his present circumstances and knew nothing more of him than that view, in comparison with his past life, could have given, would have imagined him one of the most miserable creatures that ever lived upon earth, and would have expected
Philip Doddridge—Practical Discourses on Regeneration

The Quotation in Matt. Ii. 6.
Several interpreters, Paulus especially, have asserted that the interpretation of Micah which is here given, was that of the Sanhedrim only, and not of the Evangelist, who merely recorded what happened and was said. But this assertion is at once refuted when we consider the object which Matthew has in view in his entire representation of the early life of Jesus. His object in recording the early life of Jesus is not like that of Luke, viz., to communicate historical information to his readers.
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Jesus Attends the First Passover of his Ministry.
(Jerusalem, April 9, a.d. 27.) Subdivision B. Jesus Talks with Nicodemus. ^D John III. 1-21. ^d 1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. [Nicodemus is mentioned only by John. His character is marked by a prudence amounting almost to timidity. At John vii. 50-52 he defends Jesus, but without committing himself as in any way interested in him: at John xix. 38, 39 he brought spices for the body of Jesus, but only after Joseph of Arimathæa had secured the body.
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Jeremiah
The interest of the book of Jeremiah is unique. On the one hand, it is our most reliable and elaborate source for the long period of history which it covers; on the other, it presents us with prophecy in its most intensely human phase, manifesting itself through a strangely attractive personality that was subject to like doubts and passions with ourselves. At his call, in 626 B.C., he was young and inexperienced, i. 6, so that he cannot have been born earlier than 650. The political and religious
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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